


in your hands

by cometic



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hypochondria, M/M, Pining, intentional undercase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29792469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cometic/pseuds/cometic
Summary: wilbur lets himself rely on tommy.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot/TommyInnit
Comments: 8
Kudos: 150





	in your hands

there’s no knowing if it stems from a need to be in control, or a need to know everything about himself. nonetheless, he’s still shaking from its aftermath. 

wilbur has wasted hours, now, sinking in his own cold dread, letting it consume him, this crazy idea that he’s _dying_ and any sudden movement will enact his last waking hour. he’s so… ridiculous, it’s unfathomable how anyone puts up with him. 

especially when it’s been so bad today that he’s forgotten to message tommy back. 

he knows he’s being messaged. his phone lights up next to him with a low _bzzt_ every so often, and he finds rhythm in it, consistency. it’s almost enough to lure him into sleep, knowing he has someone to answer to when he wakes up (if he wakes up). 

but he’s forcibly torn from his bed when he hears his doorbell ring. 

while he pulls on something over his tee to make himself more presentable, he idly wonders who it could be. did someone order doordash for him? god knows he could eat. surely it isn’t one of his mates, they’d give him space like reasonable adults. 

he shuffles into the living room and makes his way to the front door. then, he spies through the peephole. 

ah. now his last train of thought makes sense. 

“child,” wilbur greets instinctively after swinging the door open. he’s face-to-face with tommy’s jittering hands and baby blues. 

it strikes him then, the realization ripping through him like a haywire guitar string. “child,” he repeats, more in disbelief. 

“hey, wil.” tommy side-steps past wilbur to get inside, patting down his jeans and scuffing off his shoes. “i haven’t heard from you all day,” he says, voice relaxed in a rumbling timbre; the sound of a chord played for too long. 

_is this about the messages?_ wilbur wonders, or barely gets the chance to, before tommy pushes forward. he hastily follows after, the sound of his thump-thump-thumping too loud in his own head. “hold on, you’re not - you’re not meant to be here.”

tommy ignores him. “you look like shit.” 

wilbur falters. they push past the living room where all the lights are off. “yes, but that doesn’t mean--” 

“i don’t want you to look like shit,” tommy says, turning around, like it’s simple. or - resolute. “where are your damn lights?” 

“tommy, that doesn’t explain why you’re here,” wilbur says, and he urges tommy to understand. “you’re sixteen. i know i… said i was your best friend and all---” 

“and isn’t that true? is that not true?” 

_it’s too true_ , wilbur thinks with shaking hands, all butterflies and maggots crawling inside of his stomach and clogging his throat. “that’s not it. i’m supposed to-” he switches his approach halfway. “don’t sixteen year olds have something better to do with their time?” 

“maybe if you didn’t ignore all my messages, dickhead,” he grumbles back, pushing at wilbur’s chest a bit. “i’m not fucking dumb for worrying about you.”

wilbur softens, watching tommy close in on himself, pinching his eyebrows together and staring pointedly at the ground. his cheeks puff out too, sighing. wilbur wants to hold them in his hands, but instead he lightly goes, “no, you’re not dumb. that’s not what i’m trying to say, i’m sorry.”

“okay,” tommy says. it doesn’t sound like he fully believes wilbur. “so can you stop being a bitch and let me help you?” 

“and what’d that look like, mr. innit?”

tommy takes his hand and guides wilbur into the kitchen. the momentary confusion is quickly washed away with: “have you eaten today?” 

he wrings his hands together. wilbur knows where tommy’s going with this, and while there’s everything wrong with a sixteen year old cooking for him, he owes tommy this much. “no,” wilbur admits.

“urghh,” tommy groans, looking at the kitchen before staring at wilbur’s dishevelled state. the gears in his head churn for a few seconds, then he’s pushing wilbur back into the dark corridor and into his room.

his room is faring alright, mostly due to the fact he doesn’t touch anything other than his bed. wilbur looks around self-consciously and notices his phone is still on the nightstand. still untouched. 

tommy’s head blocks his eyesight before he can truly consider reading through it, but he still wonders what the messages contain. 

it’s a miserable thing to know he worried tommy enough for him to make the trip to wilbur’s. tommy may be able to pry him from paranoia’s sickly grip, but his touch could never remedy the hold guilt has over his mind. how dare wilbur, worrying full-of-life tommy into cooking and _caring_ for him in the way wilbur has no place being on the receiving end of, the way he doesn’t deserve, could never deserve--

wilbur gets jolted out of his thoughts by tommy pulling off his second shirt. immediately he staggers back, heart strumming out pulses of blood throughout his body. he can hear its song next to his ears as he swats tommy away, hoping he isn’t blushing. 

he tries his best to feign annoyance, nonchalance. although it’s not very convincing, tommy still retreats, but not without spite. 

“yeah, yeah, you’re such a big guy, can’t let a friend do a thing for ya.” tommy’s already blabbering, hands frustratedly pulling the comforter back. wil’s too busy chuckling to stop tommy from shoving him onto the mattress. “do it yourself then, oh wait, you’re a pussy and i have to.” 

“i resent that.”

“shut up, man,” tommy whines, jabbing wilbur’s forehead until it rests on a pillow. “how are you feeling?” 

as tommy pulls the blanket over wilbur’s torso, wilbur puts on a smile for him. “okay,” he lies. “i could probably handle myself for the rest of the night, you know.”

a small frown is all it takes for wilbur to know he messed up. dejectedly, tommy sits next to wilbur on the bed. “why are you still lying?” at the sight of wilbur’s face falling, he inches forward, too close for comfort. “you can tell me anything, i promise.”

there’s no knowing if wilbur cracks because he’s willing to hand over his heart to tommy at any moment, or because tommy’s always had it. either way, the thoughts spill from his mouth like an unwinding song, and tommy drinks in every note he has to offer. 

he talks himself tired. walks step-by-step through the last few weeks. he keeps mistaking his asthma for lung cancer, connecting symptoms to diagnoses haphazardly, letting terror settle over his body like a thick fog-- (the kind he can stop breathing in, he thinks bitterly.) it’s difficult getting some things past his throat, like the fear-stricken tears leaving him paralyzed every night, or the piercing loneliness of calling out for help to an empty room.

strangely, there are positives. wilbur tells him about his brief walks through the neighborhood. he tells tommy about the local birds, the peonies his neighbor is growing, and the way the light filters through his curtains in the morning. he doesn’t tell tommy about how his messages mean the world to him. he doesn’t tell tommy about how him being here makes wilbur want to kiss him senseless. 

his words begin to warble by the end of the conversation. without his notice, he’d started crying - full, distressed sobs, head aching from the force of them. he feels tommy nestle something into his ears, and just like that the sound gets plugged; headphones fill his ears with _sunkissed_ ’s smooth melody. 

a minute into the song, there’s a soft pressure on his forehead, then nothing. moments after the door creaks open. 

instead of thinking further, he lets his mind lapse.

wilbur is halfway through _mr. brightside_ when tommy reenters wilbur’s bedroom. this time he’s carrying a plate and a small glass of water. “bon appetit,” he says in lieu of greeting. 

thankful, wilbur eats quietly. in all honesty, it’s nice getting to eat in bed with his best friend beside him. 

the songs that filter through his ears gives him a lot to stew over. 

there’s almost a level of reciprocation in-between the words. it’s foolish, naive, most definitely projection, but wilbur can’t help but cling onto the hope anyway. 

if he hopes that tommy stares fondly when wilbur isn’t looking, the world doesn’t need to know. if he holds onto tommy so tightly because he’s afraid he’ll escape between his fingertips like a cloud of cigarette smoke, the world doesn’t need to know that either. because they’re here alone, tommy is with wilbur and he’s untouchable by cameras and disease and anything that isn’t the quiet way tommy breathes into a room. 

is that so wrong? how wilbur needs him like a guitar needs fucking strings, not because tommy can’t leave but because tommy will choose to stay, seeking him out. maybe tommy deserves to know wilbur owes everything to him, as desperate as it is.

but. but when he looks at tommy, the world tilts. 

wilbur can’t possibly break that to him.

after he’s finished eating, he numbly reaches out to tommy. his mind goes fuzzy in an instant - tommy is warm to the touch, real. the younger misinterprets wilbur’s touch, trying to relieve wilbur of his plate, but wilbur shoos his hands away. at tommy’s visible confusion, wilbur tugs him closer. 

he’s so close, close enough for wilbur to see the way the amber light contours his skin even through his lidded eyes. in a moment of weakness, he brushes his thumb over tommy’s lip, pausing just underneath it. wilbur sleepily watches the way it rolls and reshapes, tommy’s nervous chatter slurring together with the music he gave wilbur, and he thinks, _this is my favorite song_.

“you never usually talk this much in real life, toms…” he drowses. his bones, tired, let his arm fall. it’s then tommy takes the plate from his lap, his hunched figure holding it close.

“sorry,” he mutters. “is it- is it overwhelming for you?” 

“oh, no.” wilbur waves his hand, closing his eyes. he doesn’t open them up again. “m’ okay, it’s comforting. you shouldn’t feel so insecure about your voice man, it’s nice to fall asleep to.”

after that tommy doesn’t respond, at least, not without serious contemplation. he speaks up a minute later. 

“like you’re the one to talk about insecurities, wil.”

while tom leans forward to turn the lamp off, wilbur yawns. “fuck off.”

tommy laughs, harsh, and a cringe chases after the sound. “look wilby, i—“ he cuts himself off, tapping his fingers on wilbur’s palm. (wilbur’s obsessed with the feeling. he’s here and _tangible_ .) “i’m here for you, like, _forever_. okay? you can’t get rid of me. i.. i want you to know that.”

wilbur thinks tommy is going to say something else, so he waits - although he’ll admit he’s also waiting because he’s afraid of what he would say. apparently he waits too long.

the silverware on the plate jostles when tommy lifts it with his left hand. he begins to stand up. 

“ _no_ —“ wilbur’s arm shoots up and grabs tommy’s. startled, tommy drops the plate on the floor, which will surely be much more annoying to clean up in the morning, but to hell with it, it’s paper anyway. “don’t.”

a noise of confusion leaves tommy’s throat.

even with hours of practice waxing lyrical, he can’t find a good way to say it. “i want you here with me.”

his eyebrows—perched over his crescent-shaped eyes, like a cliff arched over the ocean, shining in the moonlight—furrow. simple confusion spreads over his face. “where will i sleep?” 

wilbur presses his lips together. after a few seconds, he sees realization hit tommy the same as it did wilbur earlier. “oh, with you. you want to.. cuddle, and shit?” 

“yeah,” wilbur says honestly. it’s leaking out and it won’t stop. “i do.” 

frail, whispering, tommy asks: “why?”

in tommy fashion, he breathes out. “you tether me. when i’m in your hands, your- your _care_.” he chuckles, barely audible. “makes me feel like i won’t lose myself in m’ mind. you d’n’t have to if you don’t want, though.”

another silence hits the room. it’s too familiar. 

he doesn’t know what else he’s meant to say, between the static in his head and _if my brain implodes you can sing me back to life_ , which are both equally stupid as what he said, but. 

tommy climbs in alongside him. 

“of course i want,” he mumbles into wilbur’s neck. 

and there’s no knowing if tommy foregoes ‘because you’re my best friend’ because he didn’t think of it, or because that isn’t the reason at all. 

nonetheless, he’s still holding wilbur like the world is between his palms. 

wilbur decides to lie awake before succumbing to sleep, just so he can hear tommy whisper things into his shoulder. _you deserve it_ ’s, and _i’m here’s_ , and _thank you’_ s.

it’s intoxicating, just as much as the feeling of tommy’s hair on his neckline, or knee hitting the back of his thigh, or hand wrapped around his middle, cuddled up in wilbur’s bed on a full stomach with food tommy made for him. 

the creases on his forehead smooth over, jaw untensing, shoulders going lax. his breathing evens out as his hands stop drumming out melodies.

he falls asleep to the thought of a world where tommy is in love with him just as much. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed and go drink some water or smth nerds <3 take care


End file.
